For small and medium-sized enterprises the year of Covid presented the same challenges as it did to their bigger corporate cousins, only the scale was different. Sometimes they needed help to survive; at other times they need help to thrive.
Either way, with small cash balances, small credit lines and small operational teams, they needed help. In North America it was once again Bank of America that was best able to give that help and it is the region’s best bank for SMEs.
“The year was particularly challenging for SME clients,” says Raul Anaya, president of business banking. “In business banking alone, we facilitated PPP loans for nearly half of our clients, giving them the support they needed in a difficult time.”
Bank of America has funded more than 485,000 PPP loans, with 83% of those going to businesses with no more than 10 staff.
SMEs are a client segment where Bank of America’s digital offerings are also increasingly important.
“It’s often thought that smaller companies might be less tech-oriented, but that is not the case,” says Stephanie Wolf, head of global financial institutions, governments, business banking sales and GTS risk. “They are enthusiastic adopters of technology and 74% of our business banking client base now has digital interaction with us.”
One firm that benefited from that was RJ Thieneman, a family-owned real estate business in Louisville, Kentucky. Chief executive Brian Thieneman is a financial advisory client of Merrill Lynch, Bank of America’s wealth management business, so already had an association with the bank. But his business was very analogue – he was writing more than 500 cheques a month.
That worked when he could count on the physical availability of his small staff in the office, but the Covid pandemic soon put paid to that. He needed a digital accounts payable solution and he was finding it difficult to get one through his local bank.
Enter Bank of America, with a new system it was building, which it calls Complete AP. It digitizes the entire process of processing and settling invoices. After being referred by his Merrill Lynch adviser, Steineman was soon being hooked up as the bank’s first Complete AP client.
“It’s been a game-changer for my family real estate business,” says Thieneman. “And it’s provided us with added protection in case of another pandemic.” In 2021 Bank of America formally rolled out Complete AP to other clients.
Sometimes the needs are more basic but no less important. Scott Bigler, owner of Scott’s Dental Supply, has been in dental supply all his life. But when the pandemic hit, he realized he needed to shift to supplying the personal protective equipment (PPE) that businesses all over the country needed.
In early 2020 he already had a modest $1 million line of credit with Bank of America, but with orders for PPE flooding in from Asia and later from all over the US, he knew he would need more. He was right. In 2019 his business turned over about $18 million. In 2020 it was $37 million.
Bank of America helped us save lives
Scott Bigler, Scott’s Dental Supply
Through the early months of the pandemic he was negotiating with Bank of America for an increase in his credit line. He was one of countless firms asking for something similar and although he wanted more than the $2 million that the bank offered him, he was grateful.
“It was probably better to have to work within those constraints,” he says now. “It made sure that I didn’t extend too much to clients myself – but we turned that money over quite a bit in the next few months.”
Fast forward to December, a month when Scott’s typically sells some $1.5 million of equipment, and Bigler was predicting about $7 million. Again, he called his bank, asking for as much credit as it could bear.
As with Thieneman, it was Bigler’s financial advisory relationship with Merrill Lynch that proved crucial. His adviser was able to take the bank’s credit team through his assets and assure them he was good for the money. His line duly rose to $3.8 million.
Lending matters, but for day-to-day operations Bank of America’s CashPro platform is also a big draw for Bigler. He has tried local banks before but doesn’t look further than Bank of America now. He struggled to deal with others.
“They don’t have the systems, they don’t have the same day funding, card or wire transfer capabilities – they just didn’t have what I needed,” he says. “But Bank of America helped us save lives.”
